On Tuesday, September 26, a 7-year-old girl was raped and strangulated to death by her three neighbours in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh. According to the police, all three accused, who were brothers, namely Sualin, Rizwan and one other, who is a minor, have been charged with murder, but the eldest among the brothers has also been charged with raping the minor. They have also been charged under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

Notably, the Aligarh police took to X to issue a statement on the aforementioned incident. Calling it an old incident, the police informed that two accused were arrested and sent to jail. The accused and the deceased belonged to the same religious community, the police added.

प्रकरण कई दिवस पुराना है, तत्समय चन्द घण्टों में घटना का सफल अनावरण करते हुए पड़ोसी 02 आरोपियों को गिरफ्तार कर जेल भेजा जा चुका है, मृतका व आरोपी युवक सभी एक ही धर्म से हैं और पड़ोसी हैं ।

— ALIGARH POLICE (@aligarhpolice) September 28, 2023

It is pertinent to note here that OpIndia has deliberately not mentioned the name of the third accused as he is a minor. The police took him into custody, however, he was not sent to jail but was instead placed under police observation because he is a minor.

The incident happened in the Turkman Gate area of ​​Kotwali police station in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh. The case came to the fore when the minor’s parents filed a missing complaint with the police on September 26.

The Aligarh police recovered the girl’s body from a sack in the bathroom of her neighbour’s terrace. The accused had planned to dispose of the body late at night, they added.

Notably, the police in its statement said that two accused were arrested but Indian Express quoted Kalanidhi Naithani, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Aligarh as saying that all three accused have been arrested.

“We have arrested the three brothers after recovering the body from the bathroom in their house which has a common boundary with that of the victim’s place of living. The possibility of rape cannot be ruled out though the confirmation will be only after we get the report of her medical examination,” TIE quoted the Aligarh SSP as saying.

The police said that around 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the deceased girl’s parents had sent her to the nearby market to buy more stuff. Her parents kept looking for her until late in the evening but when their efforts failed, they went to the police station to lodge a missing complaint.

Based on the CCTV footage and the accused’s sister’s statement, the police raided the house of the accused and found the girl’s body tied in a sack in a storeroom’s bathroom on the terrace. The body was sent for post mortem and the police launched a manhunt and arrested the accused on the same day.

“We checked the available CCTV footage in the locality and were told by the sister of the accused brothers that she had seen the victim with them in the afternoon. We reached the house and searched extensively only to find her body in a sack hidden in the bathroom on the first floor,” said the in-charge of the area police station.

According to the authorities, the victim’s father works in a lock factory in the town, and she was the third among four siblings.

Speaking to OpIndia local Utthan News journalist Isha Roy revealed that the accused had strangulated the minor and hid her body in the toilet of a storeroom on their terrace. We were told that the accused, after killing the minor, approached her mother several times between 12 noon to 2 pm on Tuesday to inquire about her. To prove themselves innocent, they also pretended to help the deceased’s parents look for her in the neighbourhood.

While looking for her missing child, the girl’s mother ran upon the accused’s younger sister. She inquired about the whereabouts of the child. Inadvertently, the accused sister told the mother that she had last seen the child with her brothers on the terrace. The accused sister added that she too was on the terrace but her brothers had sent her down for some work. When she didn’t see the child after that, she concluded that she must have gone home, she said.

According to our source, the accused had hidden the girl’s body in the bathroom on their terrace and planned to dispose of it later that night. They had hired an e-rickshaw and were waiting for the night to fall so they could take the body and dump it somewhere far away in a drain. Their plans, however, were thwarted when the police apprehended them before they could execute it.